Entries tagged with challenges

What? You heard me. It is a challenge, as in the days of yore, with much quaffing of mead and double-headed axes*!

You can write as little as a 100-word drabble or as much as a Nanowrivel. Or more. It can be about what/wherever you like so long as it keeps to the theme prompt somehow.

There will be a new prompt each month, but there is no deadline. Shun the months that displease you. Submit multiple entries for one month if the madness takes you.

I will be making a full list of everyone's contributions through the year, so whenever you complete a prompt, add a Comment of Triumph(TM)! to this post (or a later monthly post) and I will add your link to the round-up.

Then, in December 2012, we can look back and go 'oo'. :D

So here it is, 1/12 for the year, 'unfinished business' - because that's what we've got, peeps! Bring on 2012!!

Remember that world? Your first world? Your adolescent pride and joy, where everyone's eyes sparkled like gemstones and shelves were lethal weapons? It may have been a earlier and clunkier version of a world you're writing now. It may have been a world so cliched and unwieldy that you've entirely abandoned it, even though you still have a faint, amused fondness for it.

Here's the challenge:

Write something good set in that world or using those characters.

No deadline, no pressure - this is just for fun. You can make any changes you think necessary, but try to keep to the spirit of the world as it was.

Have fun!

(Now please excuse me - I have a date with flaming magical swords, evil Maths teachers and the sort of teenage angst that required divine intervention to get the plot moving again ^_^)

Most of the introduction be shamelessly stolen from rosiphelee's post here.

Chain Haiku:

1. This is a haiku. Well, the explanation of what a haiku is anyway. 'tis better than anything I could do. However, for the purpose of the game, I suggest that we stick merely to the rule of three lines of 5-7-5 syllables and avoid trying to fit 'Office Chair' and a season together in a maximum of around 30 words.

2. I'll post a starting prompt at the end of this entry.

3. Anyone can respond to this prompt by commenting and including in their comment the haiku and a new prompt

ie.

*Three lines of haiku-iness here*

New prompt = lemons

4. Anyone else can then reply to that comment with an answering haiku and another prompt.

5. So, you can't post a prompt without writing a haiku

5a ...and you can't write a haiku without including a new prompt.

6. You can answer any prompt, including your own, even if someone else has answered it already.

7. Prompts can be anything - single words, quotes. pictures, whatever but must be general enough that anyone can answer them. (Also, keep in mind that they're very, very, very short pieces.)

8. It's provn useful to people looking for a prompt to have the words in the subject line.

i.e.

prompt answered /\ new prompt

9. There are no timelimits. Feel free to keep this going indefinitely.

I was going to post this in my own journal for my own purposes. Then I realised that other people do exist in the world, and they might want to use it too ;)

This is a list of the mad drabbling going on here - no alphabetical or schematic order, just a straight top-to-bottom copying. So if you're looking for something to drabble about and can't deal with those collapsing commenty thingies *twitch*, just skim down.

Oh, and if you can be bothered, feel free to add more to this list as you make them up**. I'll try to check through the drabbles and update this periodically myself, but we all know how often THAT will be :P

(** ie. pop a comment down below and I'll add it to this list)Thanks, Shanra! ;)

EDIT THE SECOND: 150 drabbles fall to the drabble-sword of rosiphelee ...

By the way, if I seem to be answering every single one of your comments with banal one-liners, it's just to tag to myself that I've added your drabble to the list (telescoping comments strike again! aieee!)

2. Anyone can respond to this prompt by commenting and including in their comment the drabble and a new prompt

ie.

Hundred words of dazzling fiction here.

New prompt = lemons

3. Anyone else can then reply to that comment with an answering drabble and another prompt.

4. So, you can't post a prompt without writing a drabble

4a ...and you can't write a drabble without including a new prompt.

5. You can answer any prompt, including your own, even if someone else has answered it already.

6. Prompts can be anything - single words, quotes. pictures, whatever but must be general enough that anyone can answer them.

7. There are no timelimits. Feel free to keep this going indefinitely.

Any questions?

Your first prompt is:

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me. - T. S. Eliot

18 August: As this is now folded up into multiple comment threads, a couple of folks have suggested we label the drabbles to make it easier to find them. shanra has a nice format, so if you want to copy her and use comment headings, try this:

Prompt being answered /\ New Prompt

Cheers ^_^

Aaaaand...

ladylight's list of prompts can be found here. Comment there to let her know any new prompts.

I'm afraid I don't have the whole thing done yet (far from it!) but I have posted an extract from my Ivy story for the Celtic Challenge, for those interested. At this stage it's friends only, so let me know if you're not on my list and would still like a gander.

Come, traveller, step softly on the road. The green hills rise around you, grey in the gathering twilight. Can you hear the music in the mist, the fiddles and the flute? Tarry not on the highway. Turn your eyes away from those pale dancers by the water's edge, with their green silk ribbons. For if they catch you in their coils, 'twill be a year and day before you come home again. And only then if you pay their price...

I just wanted to remind everyone that your Challenge entries need to be finished on or by 1st February. If they're going up on Elfwood, please aim to get them in the queue by the end of the day. If they're going up elsewhere, please post them by then.

I would appreciate it very much if you could post a link in a comment to this entry once your piece is up. I want to compile a masterlist ^_^

As I've had a few questions, a few other points: If you want to know anything else, ask, please.

1. You don't have to use the name of your tree in the title but please include it in the intro somewhere.

2. saiena suggested we all use the same intro text as a unifying thing. If you want to use the intro I wrote back in November, it reads like this:

Come, traveller, step softly on the road. The green hills rise around you, grey in the gathering twilight. Can you hear the music in the mist, the fiddles and the flute? Tarry not on the highway. Turn your eyes away from those pale dancers by the water's edge, with their green silk ribbons. For if they catch you in their coils, 'twill be a year and day before you come home again. And only then if you pay their price...

Come, traveller, step softly on the road. The green hills rise around you, grey in the gathering twilight. Can you hear the music in the mist, the fiddles and the flute? Tarry not on the highway. Turn your eyes away from those pale dancers by the water's edge, with their green silk ribbons. For if they catch you in their coils, 'twill be a year and day before you come home again. And only then if you pay their price...